A couple of questions and a thank you.

Rear Admiral

Special thanks to Queeg for compiling both WCIII and WCIV into films. However, this has sparked a few questions a few ChrisReid answered for me earlier, but I have a few long complex ones after watching Price of Freedom.

1. Vegabond alludes to the treatment of Border colonies by the confederation as a long and abusive one-sided affair. What I am wondering is, where can I track down references to that view point. I know a lot was given in Fleet Action, but I am looking to find out how much Legit history has been documented in the universe.

2. Also, how did the border worlds handle military during the Kilrathi war since there was no official governing body for them to rally behind? How much documented history do we have on their Military Victories and defeats during that time period?

3. This is an off-topic question sort of. In another thread folks were discussing the Killer Bees and their fate. My question on this is simple, what did Confed do once they began discontinuing service for certain fighters and Cap Ships? That seems like an awful lot of material to simply throw on a junk heap. I know that Tolwyn once arranged ships to be sent to the frontier when the Military began moth-balling things almost right away during the false truce. I doubt how ever that it was customary for Confed to just hand the Border Worlds second hand military arms, even if they were outdated.

Rogue Leader

Regarding point 2: I'm not sure, but I would think that what we know as the Border Worlds in WC4 was still officially under the Conderation banner during the Kilrathi War (Eisen notes that the Confederation united Humanity under one name like no other institution had). The big issue in WC4 was that numbers of systems near the Kilrathi border wanted to secede from the Confederation and they united under the name of the Union of Border Worlds.

Of course, there's probably a whole lot more information on this in the novels.

Long Live the Confederation!

1. Vegabond alludes to the treatment of Border colonies by the confederation as a long and abusive one-sided affair. What I am wondering is, where can I track down references to that view point. I know a lot was given in Fleet Action, but I am looking to find out how much Legit history has been documented in the universe.

There isn't any history in Fleet Action; the 'Confederation mistreating the colonies' concept was created for Wing Commander IV - so everything you'll ever hear about it is in that game or its novelization.

2. Also, how did the border worlds handle military during the Kilrathi war since there was no official governing body for them to rally behind? How much documented history do we have on their Military Victories and defeats during that time period?

There was no Border Worlds military during the Kilrathi war. Before 2673, "Border Worlds" referred to a region of space - the frontier between the Confederation and the Empire. The planets which would later form the Union were colonies of other Terran Confederation planets. Most of the war was fought in the Border Worlds simply because of their location -- but it was fought by the Terran Confederation military.

Obviously, militia units which formed in border systems were likely to see a lot more action than those on the far side of the Confederation... and they went on to form the nucleus of the Outerworlds Fleet.

The best analogy here is to the Seven Years' War, between France and England. You wouldn't say that the United States had anything to do with the conflict... but England and France did fight through their colonies in North America and elements of the militia units which did much of the fighting went on to become the Continental Army.

3. This is an off-topic question sort of. In another thread folks were discussing the Killer Bees and their fate. My question on this is simple, what did Confed do once they began discontinuing service for certain fighters and Cap Ships? That seems like an awful lot of material to simply throw on a junk heap. I know that Tolwyn once arranged ships to be sent to the frontier when the Military began moth-balling things almost right away during the false truce. I doubt how ever that it was customary for Confed to just hand the Border Worlds second hand military arms, even if they were outdated.

Fighters and capital ships left production and than service for the same reason they've been doing so for hundreds of years - to make way for newer designs, because they're completely outclassed, because they've been replaced, because their role is no longer a part of warfare, etc. Very very very very very few Wing Commander fighters and capital ships are known to have been permanently retired. Fans like to say that whatever ships they aren't staring at at any particular time must have been retired or all destroyed or something... but there's no evidence of that and lots to counter it.

There was a lot of decommissioning of ships after the end of the war, and the Confederation certainly moved to build a modernized fighter force (all the century-series spacecraft)... but when the Nephilim attacked the Confederation brought back all kinds of mothballed fighter classes, showing that they didn't just give away all their Broadswords and Longbows.

You mention the Union of Border Worlds' navy. In Wing Commander IV it was made up of elements from militia forces, hardware left in the region (the Intrepid was an ancient destroyer, converted to a carrier) and forces provided by allied star nations (Krugers' Landreich.)

Other groups did buy Confederation surplus - especially the Landreich. In False Colors, Kruger is building up his navy with escort carriers, light cruisers, Hornets, Raptors, Rapier IIs, etc. bought from Confed's post-war scrapyards. There were also lend-lease programs - the Kilrathi Assembly of Clans was given surplus technology for various purposes...